Month: November 2017

Quit Smoking Naturally

Helen Sanders of Health Ambition (www.healthambition.com) does a wonderful job in this article to people quit smoking naturally. Helen does not go the “preachy” route that turns off so many people. Rather, she builds a framework that the consumer can use to quit smoking once and for all. Everyone gets addicted to habits like smoking in his or her own way so breaking the habit needs to involve individual choices as well.

If you are reading this post right now, then you know that smoking is bad for you. You know you should quit. You likely have loved ones that want you to quit. You know you are endangering your health and the health of others around you. You know you need to quit.

But it’s so hard isn’t it? It’s easy to overlook the cold hard facts about smoking. We’re bombarded with facts everywhere – from television and radio advertisements to guerilla marketing in the streets, to the advice of family or friends. You just can’t get away from people telling you that smoking is bad.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Smoking is one of the biggest causes of preventable disease and death in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking results in “more than 480,000 premature deaths and over $300 billion in direct health care expenditures and productivity losses each year.”

Helen gives numerous helpful insights throughout the article, ranging from how to prepare yourself to quit smoking naturally to how to stay smoke-free. If you or a loved one are looking for better health and want to break the smoking habit please feel free to read Helen’s article.

Our Model

The HealthCare Too model provides for a collaborative holistic care approach to health. We look for articles and knowledge to help consumers and their care teams make holistic health decisions and also shop for the best deals in holistic health so you can find them here! We appreciate the value of surgery and pharmaceuticals but want to make more paths available for your HealthCare Too. See our model for Holistic Health for more information!

Cupping Study

It is hard to find a cupping study. There are not many organizations willing to pay for clinical studies for cupping. There are, however, millennia of clinical studies in Traditional Chinese Medicine that do inform the practice. Fortunately, this is a recent randomized controlled trial cupping study. The study is from 2016 and took place in the Imam Reza Hospital in Kermanshah, Iran.

Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) is one of the most common complications of general anesthesia. About 30% of surgical cases report unpleasant experiences after general anesthesia. PONV is one of the most common concerns reported by patients’ preoperation visits, even more so than pain, as well as a cause of patient dissatisfaction post-operation. Moreover, PONV is associated with other serious complications, such as aspiration, wound dehiscence, pneumothorax, subcutaneous emphysema, and even esophageal rupture. Therefore, anesthesiologists and surgeons consider the control of PONV an important treatment priority.

There are a number of drugs to reduce the risk of PONV; however, in addition to their costs, their adverse effects limit their usage in routine clinical practice. For example, Droperidol is black-boxed because it is a risk factor for cardiac arrhythmias. As a result, there is great need for nonpharmacologic techniques (NPTs) and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to treat PONV.

Acupuncture stimulation of the point P6 (acupuncture points) has been shown to significantly control nausea and vomiting in a World Health Organization (WHO) study. Moreover, stimulated P6 also has analgesic effects. The location of point P6 point is between the flexor carpi radialis and the palmaris longus muscle tendons, about 2 inches proximal to the distal crease of the wrist (Fig. ​(Fig.11). Stimulation of this point has been tested in several ways, including in acupuncture, acupressure, electrical stimulation, acoustic stimulation, and so on.

Considering the fewer side effects of this therapy compared to other medicinal therapies and the lack of available clinical trials on dry cupping and PONV, the present study we aimed to test the preventive effects of dry cupping through stimulation of the P6 on postoperative nausea (PON) and postoperative vomiting (POV), as well as reducing the number of cases requiring rescue therapy (that is, need to treat [NNT]). This is the first time dry cupping therapy has been employed in treatment of PONV.

Conclusion

Our findings are promising in that they suggest dry cupping treatments at the acupressure P6 can prevent the incidence of nausea, vomiting, and need for rescue therapy after laparoscopic cholecystectomy surgery. Additional clinical studies of dry cupping are needed to investigate its effect in preventing and treating PONV in men, and children undergoing similar surgery. Also, considering that dry cupping is a noninvasive procedure with fewer side effects compared to other medicinal therapy, its prophylactic antiemetic therapy should be investigated for different patients, other types of surgeries and different anesthetic agent or anesthesia procedures. More randomized, controlled multicenter studies are needed. They may provide firm evidence of the effectiveness of dry cupping, and demonstrate its underlying analgesic mechanism in preventing PONV.

What Else?

The cupping study offers many additional avenues to explore. Those who have avoided acupuncture for fear of needles may find cupping an appealing and effective alternative. Hospitals may be able to use this cupping study to reduce costs and help patients spend less time recuperating after surgeries. Consumers and Western medical providers are growing more familiar with cupping. Through experience, more cupping studies, and reviewing millennia of Traditional Chinese Medicine writings both consumers and providers will benefit.

Our Model

The HealthCare Too model provides for a collaborative holistic care approach to health. We look for articles and knowledge to help consumers and their care teams make holistic health decisions and also shop for the best deals in holistic health so you can find them here! We appreciate the value of surgery and pharmaceuticals but want to make more paths available for your HealthCare Too. See our model for Holistic Health for more information!

Employers Embrace Wellbeing

For decades employers have pushed wellness programs on employees in the hopes of controlling costs. In many cases, the wellness program was a watered-down annual wellness visit to check weight, blood pressure, heart rate, smoking, and alcohol consumption. There are countless horror stories where employer wellness plans that focused on biometrics and not employees had devastating outcomes. Luckily, more employers embrace wellbeing today and are moving away from wellness visits and their supposed cost savings.

Firms such as Delta Air Lines, LinkedIn and Walmart are broadening their focus from physical health to multiple dimensions of well-being; and demonstrating that its value far exceeds healthcare cost savings alone.

Say goodbye to wellness programs as you know them, and say hello to the future of well-being at work. Today, two pivotal changes are transforming the industry. First, employers are broadening their focus from physical health to multiple dimensions of well-being; and second, employers are demonstrating that the value of employee well-being includes — but far exceeds — healthcare cost savings alone, and can positively impact business performance.

This change to focusing on the whole person is happening for good reason: A growing body of research shows that employees’ physical health is just one of a number of factors that influence key outcomes valued by employers such as productivity, work performance and turnover. Additionally, human capital experts agree that well-being programs that focus on multiple areas of employees’ lives are essential to creating a positive workplace experience.

Hand in hand with the transition from wellness to well-being is increased emphasis on employee choice. Rather than prescribing what employees should do (as wellness programs have been doing for decades), modern well-being programs encourage employees to embark on self-improvement initiatives based on their interests, goals and needs. LinkedIn, for example, gives employees $2,000 per year to engage in the health and well-being activities that matter most to them. Employees can choose to be reimbursed for services such as massage, gym memberships, personal trainers and classes like yoga, Pilates, golf and swim. Even childcare, pet walking and pet day care are included.

Our Model

The HealthCare Too model provides for a collaborative holistic care approach to health. We look for articles and knowledge to help consumers and their care teams make holistic health decisions and also shop for the best deals in holistic health so you can find them here! We appreciate the value of surgery and pharmaceuticals but want to make more paths available for your HealthCare Too. See our model for Holistic Health for more information!

Sick Care

Tim has photo opp with Zoo penguin

One morning I was setting up a booth at a trade show. I had time to spare so I looked for the coffee. The facility was still preparing everything for breakfast so I slumped back to the booth to wait. A few minutes later I overheard a gentleman ask the conference administrators about coffee and he received the same answer. But now I had a fellow coffee enthusiast! It would be a polite gesture to offer to drive him to Starbucks and no longer just my own indulgence. OK, I probably would have convinced myself to go anyway but by waiting a few minutes I met Paul Grundy, “father” of the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH). While there is still much in sick care that PCMH should address, even this effort is a Herculean feat.

Turns out that Dr. Grundy was the keynote speaker at lunch. He used an analogy in that keynote to describe the US “health care” system that still makes me chuckle. According to Paul Grundy, if we wanted to save fish that went over Niagara Falls with the same philosophy as the US “health care” system then we would wait for the fish to go over the falls, send in a rescue helicopter to locate the fish and airlift the fish back to the top of the falls where it would receive all necessary medical attention before releasing it back into the river… so it could go over the falls again and repeat the cycle. Alternatively, we could put a net further upstream to stop the fish. Of course, the net is not covered by insurance… only the helicopter and medical attention.

And this continues to be the frustration for just about everyone it seems. All efforts to improve “sick care” focus almost exclusively on improving a broken process, not promoting health with prevention or cures:

Reducing hospital readmissions instead of keeping people from needing hospital admission in the first place,

Combating the opioid crisis instead of promoting non-pharmacological options, and so on.

It is great that rescue is available but prevention is even better.

Benefits of Lifestyle

It is not news that a healthy lifestyle produces, well…, better health. However, it does seem to be lost in the healthcare debate that a healthy lifestyle can prevent,stop or even reverse many chronic diseases. No need for the helicopter to locate and retrieve the fish.

An Example: Heart Disease in Sick Care & Health Care

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US and claims over 600,000 people each year. A standard treatment for heart disease might include statins but an improved and healthy lifestyle (e.g., diet, exercise, relationships, etc.) might be more beneficial and have few (if any) harmful effects. To compare “apples to apples” for statins and lifestyle, we need a common measure. Luckily such an instrument exists and has been around for years (but, surprisingly, not used nearly enough). The measure is the Number Needed to Treat (NNT):

Although we think if a doctor prescribes a treatment it’s going to help, a lot of therapies benefit very few patients. The “number needed to treat” captures this: It’s how many people must get some intervention for a bad thing to be averted in one person. For instance, the NNT for antibiotics curing conjunctivitis within 10 days is about 12: A dozen people with that eye infection need to take the drugs for one person who would otherwise remain infected to become cured. The other 11 either would have gotten better on their own or aren’t helped by the drugs.

So an NNT of 1 is a perfect therapy. One person undergoes the treatment and that person gets the intended benefit. The higher the NNT the more people who must undergo the treatment in order for at least one person to benefit.

Let’s now use NNT to look at statins vs a lifestyle approach for heart disease.

Statins

Statins, which have become synonymous with “heart-attack-and-stroke-preventing,” have an NNT of 60 for heart attack and 268 for stroke: That’s how many healthy people have to take statins for five years for those respective outcomes to be prevented. In people with heart disease already, the number is smaller: Just 39 must take statins for five years for one non-fatal heart attack to be prevented, while 83 have to do so for one life to be saved. If 125 people with high blood pressure take drugs for five years to lower it, the meds will prevent a fatal stroke or heart attack in only one.

This means 39 people with heart disease must take statins for five years in order to prevent one fatal heart attack. Stated differently, the statins helped 2.6% (1 / 39) of those people by preventing a repeat heart attack with five years of treatment. None of these people got better… but one avoided a fatal heart attack. This might be success in “sick care” but is a miserable failure in “health care”.

Overall, 82% of experimental-group patients had an average change towards regression. Comprehensive lifestyle changes may be able to bring about regression of even severe coronary atherosclerosis after only 1 year, without use of lipid-lowering drugs.

What does this mean for those suffering from heart disease? The Editor’s Choice in the October 2010 BMJ says it best:

80% OF THE PATIENTS ARE CLINICALLY CURED AND PAIN FREE AFTER ONE MONTH (NNT=1)

When the patients understand the association between life-style and health and change the way they think, feel and live, they heal. Ornish has shown us that it really is that simple, also when it comes to the most severe physical diseases like coronary vessel stenosis in the heart and prostate cancer.

It normally takes the heart patients less than a month to reopen an almost closed coronary artery, which is lightening fast! How efficient is his medicine then? Well, according to the published statistics, about 80% of his heart patients are cured by the intervention, both in short term (1-3 month) and in long term (3 years).

This was not simply about avoiding a coronary event. The Ornish Lifestyle Medicine therapy was curative… it reopened the coronary artery.

Making the Point

We can plainly see that approaches like Ornish Lifestyle Medicine are effective, based on clinical evidence that has been published for decades (NNT = 1). We know that statins are far less effective through various population studies (NNT = 39). The difference between statins and a lifestyle approach is not just efficacy; rather, even the claimed benefits are dramatically different (avoiding coronary event for statins and reopening coronary artery for Ornish Lifestyle Medicine). However, the topic before the US “sick care” system is not “How do we get more patients off statins and enrolled in lifestyle medicine”? Instead we are debating whether to keep ineffective and dangerous statins or use a new class of drugs that are far more expensive.

Nearly 90 percent of the patients [Johns] Hopkins wants to put on expensive, powerful PCSK9 inhibitors are initially rejected, making heart disease perhaps the central stage in the battle over high U.S. drug prices. In the least, it’s the drug-pricing battle that may matter to the most Americans: Heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the country.

Two years after PCSK9 inhibitors from Amgen and Sanofi-Regeneron hit the market, patients are caught in the middle. The injectable drugs — which block a liver protein that prevents the organ from breaking down cholesterol — reduce bad cholesterol as much as 60 percent when combined with statins that have dominated cholesterol-reduction treatment for years. And they work for patients who get poor results from statins or can’t take them because of side effects, Martin said.

Most people with high cholesterol do fine with statin treatment, Ofman said. Those drugs, whose sales peaked at nearly $40 billion but have been battered by generic competition since 2012, are effective in most patients and have few side effects in about 90 percent of cases. In the rest, the most common side effect is muscle pain, which can be severe enough to make patients seek alternatives.

We spent $40 Billion on a statins that reduced risk of a fatal heart attack by 2.6%. The statins did not heal anyone, just reduced the risk of a heart attack. And there are known adverse events such as diabetes that may well offset the benefit of a lower risk for heart attack. So then what does this new wonder drug look like?

The estimated cost of treating 74 patients (the number needed to treat (NNT)) for two years with evolocumab [PCSK9 inhibitor] is $2.123.800. That would be the cost of preventing one event (cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction or stroke) over a period of two years.

We can prevent one event per 74 patients over a two-year period at a cost of $2,123,800? Again, no one gets cured and, in this case, we have reduced risk of a coronary event by 1.3% (1 / 74).

Only in a “sick care” system can statins vs PCSK9 possibly rise to the level of a debate.

The Question

We have known for three decades that a lifestyle approach is a perfect therapy for heart disease (NNT = 1). We have known for at least 5 years (date of NNT statin study is 2013) that statins are only somewhat effective (NNT=39) and can actually cause harm (i.e., developing diabetes or muscle damage). The US “sick care” system writes scripts for $40 billion to cover “cheap” statins and wants to move to expensive PCSK9 which is still not a cure and seems less effective than statins based on the NNT.

If we truly want to transform from “sick care” to “health care” and provide more health at lower costs, we must answer this question: Why isn’t a funded prescription for several months of lifestyle coaching and products a required first step for EVERY person who faces a chronic illness before escalating to costly and risky pharmaceutical or surgical therapies? I understand lifestyle will not work for some people… they will simply not change and prefer “sick care”. The lifestyle approach is only first step, not a barrier.

Pharmaceuticals and surgeries are wonderful advancements in modern medicine. They have their place. However, that place should not be the first line of defense for chronic diseases… especially where there are evidence-based alternatives than can lead to a reversal of the disease.

Be Well!

-Tim

Tim Perry, MPA, MS, CPHIMS, PCMH CCE, CISSP is the Chief Information Officer of Consumer Health platform HealthCareToo.com. Tim has a deep passion for transforming and improving healthcare that spans two decades. He is blessed with a wonderful wife and two inspiring children. Tim has practiced Tai Chi (Taiji Chuan) for over 15 years and enjoys cooking wholesome (and easy) meals.

Cinnamon Burns Fat

As the article states, this is no “silver bullet” but the fact that cinnamon burns fat is quite helpful. Here we can follow Hippocrates’ advice “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” For pennies most people can add cinnamon to a healthy meal and reap the benefits of cinnamon. Far better to prevent so many obesity-based chronic diseases than spend thousands of dollars on medicine and years of suffering.

Cinnamon is no miracle cure, but it might help fight those extra pounds.

Researchers have known for a while that cinnamaldehyde, an essential oil that gives cinnamon its flavor and odor, can boost metabolism in mice, but the mechanism through which it does this wasn’t so well understood. Now, Jun Wu, research assistant professor at the LSI, has applied cinnamaldehyde to fat cells from both rats and humans. He and his colleagues learned that the oil acts directly on the fat cells (also called adipocytes), causing them to burn energy through thermogenesis (heat generation). In other words, cinnamon oil makes fat cells burn out.

Now, this doesn’t mean that tossing cinnamon into your latte or pastry will help you lose any extra pounds. The world has a massive obesity problem, and no silver bullet will cure that — even if it’s cinnamon coated. Many media outlets tend to greatly exaggerate such benefits, and consumers end up believing that this or that food can magically get rid of obesity. Nothing can replace a healthy diet and exercise. However, as part of a balanced lifestyle, cinnamon might also help.

Our Model

The HealthCare Too model provides for a collaborative holistic care approach to health. We look for articles and knowledge to help consumers and their care teams make holistic health decisions and also shop for the best deals in holistic health so you can find them here! We appreciate the value of surgery and pharmaceuticals but want to make more paths available for your HealthCare Too. See our model for Holistic Health for more information!

Behavior Kills

We have known for years that behavior impacts health. There has been a linkage between smoking and cancer for decades. A new study shows that unhealthy behaviors, including smoking, are behind many cancers.

We found that 42% of all incident cancer cases and almost one-half of all cancer deaths, representing 659,640 cancer cases and 265,150 deaths, were attributable to evaluated risk factors in the United States in 2014. Cigarette smoking was associated with far more cancer cases and deaths than any other single risk factor, accounting for nearly 20% of all cancer cases and 30% of all cancer deaths, followed by excess body weight. Lung cancer had the highest number of cancer cases or deaths attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors, followed by colorectal cancer.

The proportions of all cancer cases and deaths attributable to smoking, red and processed meat consumption, HCV infection, UV radiation, and HIV infection were higher in men compared with women, reflecting historically higher prevalence of these risk factors in men. In contrast, the proportions were higher in women for excess body weight, alcohol intake, physical inactivity, and HPV infection, largely driven by the high burden of breast, endometrial, and cervical cancers attributable to these risk factors.

Consumer Health

We know that consumer choice and behavior are major factors in health. However, the US continues to pay trillions for “sick care” and Americans suffer from chronic illness in epidemic numbers while overlooking the role of behavior. To borrow from humorist Erma Bombeck, fighting chronic disease while Americans are sold unhealthy behaviors is like shoveling while its still snowing. We will continue to waste money and watch people suffer as long as we do not address social determinants of health. A holistic approach to health is the only way. We believe consumers, when informed, will make the best Lifestyle choices for themselves and their loved ones.

Our Model

The HealthCare Too model provides for a collaborative holistic care approach to health. We look for articles and knowledge to help consumers and their care teams make holistic health decisions and also shop for the best deals in holistic health so you can find them here! We appreciate the value of surgery and pharmaceuticals but want to make more paths available for your HealthCare Too. See our model for Holistic Health for more information!

The Hospital in Hospitality

The English word hospital finds its roots in the Late Latin hospitale “guest-house, inn,” (click here for more etymology) and evolved to focus on the sick and needy. The idea that the hospitality industry has taken a renewed interest in health and wellbeing for its guests really isn’t so new. While hospitals continue to offer care for the sick, people choose wellbeing instead of becoming victims of chronic illnesses. These folks would rather spend money to enjoy hospitality and avoid hospital.

With physical and mental wellbeing a top priority for growing numbers of people, many don’t like to leave their healthy habits at home when they travel.

It’s not just a case of a quick manicure or massage; today’s business and leisure travelers increasingly expect the types of treatments they’re used to at home when they’re on the move whether it’s a consultation with a sleep doctor, Vitamin C-infused showers or a personal training session.

As such, hotels across the world are revamping their fitness and spa operations beyond conventional gyms, saunas and steam rooms to give affluent guests an additional reason to choose their hotel over competitors.

Consumers Choose Wellbeing

The article cites two especially compelling statistics from the Global Wellness Institute:

the market for wellness tourism is expected to reach $680 billion this year

wellness travelers spend 130 percent than typical guests

In a time where patients see health care costs rising but quality and outcomes stagnant it is interesting that wellness tourism continues to grow and that those travelers willingly spend more.

Our Model

The HealthCare Too model provides for a collaborative holistic care approach to health. We look for articles and knowledge to help consumers and their care teams make holistic health decisions and also shop for the best deals in holistic health so you can find them here! We appreciate the value of surgery and pharmaceuticals but want to make more paths available for your HealthCare Too. See our model for Holistic Health for more information!

Tried Cupping

Cupping seems like one of those things that can’t work. Just too easy. Yet many Olympic athletes and Hollywood stars have tried cupping and marvel at its benefits.

It’s the secret to Michael Phelps recovery and Gwyneth’s detox routine. But does cupping really work, and how long do those marks last? One writer goes in deep.

The use of cups allows for the stretching and opening of muscle tissue, creating space to drain toxins from your cells, he [Pourziaee] explains. “By manually going in and moving things around, you’re able to push toxins from those cells into the lymphatic system,” Dr. Pourziaee explains. “Your body naturally does that — your lymphatic system is your body’s filter. But this is a catalyst to give that natural detoxification process a boost.”

Define these so-called “toxins,” you say? “They’re either water soluble or fat soluble, and can come from the environment around you, processed foodsyou eat, or chemical additives that accumulate in your blood,” Dr. Pourziaee says. “Usually if they’re water soluble, you will naturally urinate them out within 24 to 48 hours. But the ones that are fat soluble stay in and around your fat cells. Those are usually the ones that need an extra boost to get out.”

And an experienced cupping practitioner can help guide them, he says. “In your upper body, your major lymph nodes are under your armpits, so most of the time the cups are moved toward that region. In your lower extremities, your major lymph nodes are in the groin area.”

Our Model

The HealthCare Too model provides for a collaborative holistic care approach to health. We look for articles and knowledge to help consumers and their care teams make holistic health decisions and also shop for the best deals in holistic health so you can find them here! We appreciate the value of surgery and pharmaceuticals but want to make more paths available for your HealthCare Too. See our model for Holistic Health for more information!

Millennial Health Care

Americans born between between the early 1980’s to the mid 1990’s are often labeled “Millennials” as a demographic to depict / explain behavior of the generation. While we should not rely too much on demographics, each generation does have some defining characteristics. Millennials have entered an increasingly expensive and broken “sick care” system like many generations. However, millennial health care is different because there is broad acceptance that “health” is more holistic.

[P]rioritization of personal health has only increased as millennials age into adulthood, as the volume of discussions surrounding self-care has octupled in the past two years in comparison to the entire decade prior. The language of self-care has also expanded, encompassing various aspects of emotional, environmental and relational health. As millennials work harder to take care of themselves in greater ways, they’re effectively blurring the lines between reactive and preventative care. The ultimate millennial self-care goal is to have the solutions they need for holistic health with room to adjust for personal interpretation of their own needs and desires.

Although concerned about wellness, millennials are not instinctively turning to their insurance carriers or even their doctors to assist them. Half of millennials claim to visit a doctor less than once per year, 93% don’t schedule preventative care visits, and 42% are willing to cancel a check-up.

Not About Brand Or Price?

The article goes on to examine ways for the “health care” industry to improve via pricing, transparency, etc. From our experience at HealthCare Too the author missed something important. In fact, what the author missed does not even apply just to millennials. From conversations, comments on our articles, and purchasing behavior we have found that people of all ages want their health to be more than prescriptions and doctor visits. There is widespread acceptance that the US has a “sick care” system. People do not want to become sick and they do not want to spend inordinate sums of money on things they do not understand. In millennial health care, however, there seems more willing to question traditional authority and the idea of “health” but they are not alone.

Our Model

The HealthCare Too model provides for a collaborative holistic care approach to health. We look for articles and knowledge to help consumers and their care teams make holistic health decisions and also shop for the best deals in holistic health so you can find them here! We appreciate the value of surgery and pharmaceuticals but want to make more paths available for your HealthCare Too. See our model for Holistic Health for more information!

Executive Health

If ever there was model of “spare no expense” healthcare it is executive health. These key people are responsible for millions (or billions) of dollars and hundreds or thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of employees. It is critical to these organization that those folks remain healthy, hence the specialty of Executive Health– from testing to on-going coaching. For this incredibly small number of top executives, price is not a barrier. But is that a good thing?

Traditional Executive Health programs designed for business executives take advantage of the widespread belief that more medicine is better medicine. That is, if a test is available to detect disease, it should be done. For this reason, such programs typically offer a full day of testing designed to detect hidden disease at an early (and therefore theoretically curable) stage and assess the risk for future disease.

While this sounds like a prudent idea—and an attractive one from a marketing perspective—in fact the number of tests that actually make sense to perform are far fewer than the number that are usually offered. For example, screening exercise treadmill tests are almost always included in Executive Health physicals. Counterintuitive as it may seem, however, offering exercise tests to people without symptoms of heart disease is a serious mistake.

Our Model

The HealthCare Too model provides for a collaborative holistic care approach to health. We look for articles and knowledge to help consumers and their care teams make holistic health decisions and also shop for the best deals in holistic health so you can find them here! We appreciate the value of surgery and pharmaceuticals but want to make more paths available for your HealthCare Too. See our model for Holistic Health for more information!